Pakistan
Canadians protest proposed tuition hikes, strike paralyzes Quetta, thousands march to support Russian hunger striker
- On Saturday, thousands of students in Quebec were joined by residents young and old for a protest against planned tuition hikes that coincided with the anniversary marking Premier Jean Charest’s taking power nine years ago.
- In Pakistan, a crippling strike paralyzed life in the provincial capital of Quetta on Sunday as people protested Saturday’s target killings of nine people, including eight Hazaras, and the government’s failure to improve the law and order situation.
- About 30 members of Afghan Young Women for Change staged a protest march in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul Saturday, denouncing violence against women.
- On Saturday, up to 4,000 opposition supporters marched through the southern Russian city of Astrakhan in support of a hunger-striking local politician who says he was robbed of an election victory by vote rigging.
- Police arrested about two dozen people who barricaded themselves inside the Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic on Chicago’s South Side on Friday to protest its planned closing.
- Ten Cuban former political prisoners protesting their “total abandonment” in Spain launched a hunger strike on Friday to press their demands for government assistance.
Trayvon Martin protesters block police station, Russians turn Red Square white, thousands march in Bahrain
- Trayvon Martin protesters on Monday blocked the front doors of the Sanford Police Department in Florida for nearly five hours but walked away peacefully after convincing city officials to hold a community forum.
- In Tunisia, police fired tear gas Monday to disperse a rally of hundreds on a central Tunis avenue where demonstrations are banned.
- Pilots for Spanish airline Iberia, part of International Airlines Group, went on strike on Monday, grounding 150 flights in the first of 30 one-day strikes to protest against the start-up of low-cost carrier Iberia Express.
- Egyptian train drivers staged a sit-in in Cairo’s Ramses Train Station on Monday, bringing rail traffic across the country to a halt for more than seven hours, to demand an additional allowance for working on Saturdays, bonus increases and risk allowances.
- Opposition supporters wearing white ribbons walked in a circle during a Red Square protest against the rule of Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sunday. At least three activists were arrested after pitching a tent near Lenin’s Mausoleum.
- Thousands of Shiite Muslims from Islamabad and Rawalpindi on Sunday participated in a sit-in outside the parliament to protest the killings of Shiite Muslims in Pakistan and government crackdown against the innocent people of Gilgit City.
- Bahraini security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands of protesters marching Friday in support of a jailed human rights activist whose nearly two-month hunger strike has become a powerful rallying point for the tiny nation’s Shiite-led uprising against the Sunni monarchy.
- On Friday, police in India dispersed protesters who staged a sit-in protest against the gang-rape of a woman.
Millions in India strike, Russian human chain encircles capital, disabled Bolivians launch hunger strike
- Millions of people, including members of the nation’s eleven largest trade unions, took to the streets across India today in a nationwide strike that seeks a remedy to rampant inflation, an end to the privatization of public entities, and increased labor protections — including calls for a social security system and a minimum wage.
- Tens of thousands of Muscovites wearing white ribbons ventured out under a light snow Sunday and formed a human chain along the entire 10-mile Garden Ring Road encircling the city center, creating a festive spectacle like nothing anyone remembers seeing before in the Russian capital.
- Thirteen Tibetans, detained last week for protesting against China in front of the United Nations office in Nepal, started an indefinite hunger strike on Monday to press for their release.
- Actress-turned-eco-warrior Lucy Lawless has been arrested with six Greenpeace activists after the group spent four days protesting aboard an oil-drilling ship docked in New Zealand.
- Dozens of women and young children from Kashmiri refugee camps holding placards inscribed with pro-freedom slogans staged a sit-in and a rally on Sunday to invite attention international community on Kashmir.
- In Pakistan, hundreds of tribesmen Saturday kicked off protests and a two-day sit-in against the U.S. drone attacks outside the Parliament House in Islamabad.
- Critics of the 22-year-old authoritarian rule of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev staged protests in four cities Saturday and were met by overwhelming police forces but little violence.
- Five disabled protesters in Bolivia have begun a hunger strike in their campaign demanding that the government pay an annual subsidy to disabled people. About 1,000 disabled Bolivians and their supporters rallied outside the country’s parliament building on Thursday following a 100-day protest journey to the capital to call for the $700 payment.
Yemenis demonstrate against immunity for Saleh, nationwide protests in US challenge Citizens United
- Thousands of Yemenis protested on Sunday against an immunity law protecting outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh from prosecution and demanded he be put on trial for offences they say he committed during his 33-year rule.
- More than 50 students from Tuscon High School walked out of class on Monday and marched toward Santa Rita Park in protest of the recent ban on Mexican American studies at TUSD schools.
- In Egypt, dozens of employees at the state-run Nile News TV Channel started an open-ended strike Sunday at the Maspero building, as they protested policies still in place since Mubarak’s rule.
- Malawi lawyers across the country Monday protested in their court regalia to pressure the governement to act on the ongoing judiciary strike.
- Truck drivers across Italy went on strike on Monday against increased fuel prices, while taxis also held a national protest over government reforms to increase competition, causing disruptions nationwide.
- Scores of protests were held across the country on Friday to protest the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which ruled corporations have a right to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. A dozen demonstrators were arrested on the U.S. Supreme Court steps.
- In Lebanon, severe electricity cuts fueled several protests Friday as residents and lawmakers staged a sit-in in the mountain town of Aley and small groups of protesters blocked roads in the south of the country.
- Several women and children staged a sit-in outside the Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Friday to protest against the kidnapping of Baloch youths and the dumping of their bodies in different parts of the province.
- Protests in two West Bank universities have shut down classes in recent days, as students call for easing of tuition fees amid financial crisis in Palestine.
- Beginning last Tuesday, about 100,000 teachers from 24,000 non-government primary schools in Bangladesh held a three-day strike to demand that they be brought onto the government’s payroll.
Thousands of lawyers in Pakistan strike, Bhopal disaster survivors protest Dow’s sponsorship of the Olympics
- To mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, nearly 40 people were arrested outside the White House on Thursday and detainees at the prison launched a hunger strike.
- Dozens of cars manned by Palestinians from the West Bank tried to leave Jericho on Tuesday morning in a non-violent protest action to protest and challenge the system of Israeli-only roads throughout the West Bank, but were stopped by Israeli forces, who blocked the four lanes entering and exiting the Palestinian city.
- On Monday, survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy staged a protest at a park as part of the international campaign to demand that the Organizing Committee of the London Games set to begin from July 27, cancel the sponsorship by Dow Chemicals.
- Workers at consumer goods giant Unilever staged a noisy protest outside the firm’s London offices in a dispute over pensions which is set to escalate into a series of strikes starting next Tuesday.
- More than 9,000 lawyers boycotted court proceedings in Pakistan’s major cities on Tuesday in protest of a senior attorney’s slaying outside his home in Lahore.
- Workers at a Freeport McMoran mine in Indonesia on Tuesday halted their gradual return to work one day after gunmen shot two contractors dead on the road to the Grasberg mine.
- As many as 231 Air India flight attendants refused to work on Tuesday, which delayed four international flights, to protest non-payment of salaries and sustenance allowance since August.
Somalis protest in solidarity with prisoners, strikes paralyze traffic in Belgium
The message written on this protester's hands reads: "Our demand is the trial."
- Thousands of Yemenis marched toward the capital on Thursday to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh face trial for killing protesters during 11 months of demonstrations against him and to denounce a new government that would spare him prosecution.
- Several thousand Eyptian activists gathered in Cairo after Friday prayers today for a mass protest against the ruling military and its handling of a series of clashes between security forces and demonstrators that killed 17 people and drew international criticism.
- In Somalia, residents of Sool’s provincial capital of Las Anod took to the streets and went on strike on Thursday, bringing the city to a standstill, to show solidarity with prisoners staging a hunger strike at the city’s main prison.
- On Thursday, holiday strikes to protest austerity measures paralyzed ground traffic in Belgium.
- Camped outside Hungary’s public broadcaster, a small group of television editors is on hunger strike to protest what they say is widespread news manipulation by the government.
- In Pakistan, more than 2,500 members of seven labor unions from across the country gathered at the Railways Headquarters on Wednesday to stage a sit-in against the government’s ‘inability’ to rescue the Railways.
- In Sudan, dozens of students held a protest assembly at Jackson Square on Tuesday in the heart of Khartoum to show solidarity with the month-long Manasir protest against the the Merowe Hydropower Project.
- A group of asylum seekers who survived last weekend’s boat disaster off the Indonesian island of Java have begun a hunger strike after being moved to a detention centre where as many as 12 people are sharing each cell.
- In Kuwait, police used tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and smoke bombs to disperse a large protest on Monday by the country’s stateless people in Taimaa. Around 30 men who entered a hunger strike were arrested.
Egyptian women hold fifth day of protests against military abuse, Chinese villagers win standoff against government
- Dozens of Bahraini Shiite employees fired over pro-democracy protests rallied on Wednesday demanding a return to work, a day after authorities said 181 would be reinstated.
- Thousands of angry Egyptian women joined a fifth day of protests in downtown Cairo to voice outrage over what they said was the military’s abuse and mistreatment of female demonstrators.
- The leaders of the rebellious Wukon village in southern China have reached a tentative resolution with senior provincial officials after a tense 10-day stand-off, which saw the villagers erect blockades around all of its entrances–effectively living outside government control–to protest their lack of basic needs.
- As many as 30,000 people protested plans for a coal-fired power plant in Guangong province, China’s most affluent and open-minded region. Residents stormed local government offices and blocked a busy highway that runs from the manufacturing hub of Shenzhen to the city of Shantou.
- A group of women from the Ukrainian topless-protest group Femen recounted their ordeal in neighboring Belarus, where on Monday they were kidnapped, beaten and abused by local security officials for a protest in Minsk in which they bared their breasts to bring attention to President Aleksander Lukashenko’s crackdown on the opposition.
- After six days of protest, armed with 97,000-plus signatures, queers in Seoul, South Korea got the result they were hoping for. The Seoul Municipal Council’s passage of a Students Rights Ordinance with all clauses intact, including ones that affect the well-being of queer students.
- Demonstrators from Argentina’s UATRE farm hands union, blocked access to the Pan-American highway along some of Buenos Aires City’s main access routes to protest the passage of the controversial Farm Worker Statute, which was debated and approved today at the Senate today.
- For the second time in two weeks, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich was temporarily drowned out by Occupy protesters as he made his final push to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. “Mic Check,” they announced, continuing, “Put people first!”
South Korea sees thousandth weekly protest, a ‘human oil spill’ in D.C.
- South Korean protesters calling attention to the women forced into sexual slavery during WWII reached their thousandth weekly demonstration on Wednesday. Marking the occasion, a statue honoring the victims was erected in front of the Japanese embassy.
- Chicago activists progressively interrupted a school board meeting on Wednesday in an act of nonviolent resistance—eventually forcing the board members to retreat out of the room—in protest of proposed changes to low-income schools.
- Demonstrators opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline staged a ‘human oil spill’ in front of Speaker John Boehner’s office in Washington D.C. Wednesday.
- Portugal’s top trade union confederation CGTP on Monday launched a week of protests against the government’s austerity policies.
- Employees of the Lahore College for Women University in Pakistan held a boycott of classes for the second day on Tuesday, demanding better terms for school workers.
- Thousands of taxi drivers in Guinea Bissau went on strike Tuesday to call for an end to police extortion.
- Disabled persons in Athens held a rally on Tuesday to oppose further austerity measures being considered by the Greek government.
- Inmates at seven Kyrgyzstan prisons coordinated a hunger strike on Tuesday to agitate for better living conditions and meals.
- Around 200 Los Angeles high school students walked out of classes on Tuesday and marched several miles to stage a sit-in at district board meeting, decrying cuts to school budgets.
- Thousands of public sector workers in Cyprus staged a three-hour stoppage Tuesday in protest over government moves to freeze salaries for two years as part of an austerity drive to avoid an EU bailout.
- A network of progressive South Korean Christian groups began a four day hunger strike on Monday to protest vote buying and corruption in the country’s largest Protestant association.
Arabs and Bedouins strike in Israel, tens of thousands demonstrate in Russia
- Arab and Bedouin Israelis held a state-wide general strike on Sunday as several thousand demonstrators gathered at the Prime Ministry to express their outrage at a government plan that would relocate Negev Bedouins out of their homes into impoverished townships.
- In cities all across Russia, unauthorized demonstrations were ongoing Sunday after anti-Putin protesters escalated their dissent in Moscow at a massive rally on Saturday as tens of thousands marched for free elections.
- On Sunday, Syrians in some regions observed the opposition’s call for a general strike, despite reports that police in the capital forced shop owners to reopen.
- After leading scores of protesters inside of Durban climate talks on Friday, Greenpeace activists posed as representatives of wealthy corporations on Sunday to call attention to the beneficiaries of failed action at the ICC.
- Bangkok, Thailand saw a rare second rally in two days Saturday as a throng of marchers engaged in a ‘fearlessness walk’ reiterated their objections to laws that punish those who speak out against the monarchy.
- A flash mob erupted in a Pittsburgh Target on Saturday as Occupy organizers briefly flooded the store in protest of the company’s hiring policies.
- For the second day in a row, hundreds of Indian teachers in Bangalore boycotted classes on Friday in protest of low wages.
- Demonstrations condemning the NATO airstrike in Pakistan have been ongoing for two weeks across the country, and were sparked anew after prayers Friday.
- Tens of thousands of Yemenis took to the streets again Friday chanting ‘no partnership with the murderers’ after a new Cabinet—half filled with pro-regime politicians—was announced.
- In the Dominican Republic on Thursday, hundreds of activists rallied against the government’s practice of confiscating or annulling birth certificates for those of Haitian descent.
Sit-in continues at Tahrir, millions in India close shop, high schoolers walk out
- Protests were ongoing Sunday in Tahrir Square after thousands of protesters rallied on Friday for an end to the Army’s rule in Egypt.
- Despite strict controls on public speech, Singapore saw a rare public demonstration on Sunday as hundreds of activists participated in the global “Slut Walk” movement, calling attention to violence against women.
- Jordanian environmentalists staged a sit-in Saturday at the Prime Ministry, objecting to the country’s atomic program.
- Friday marked the seventh day of protests in Pakistan as demonstrators decried a NATO airstrike in Pakistani territory which killed 24 soldiers.
- On Wednesday, a mass rally took place in Bulgaria as thousands demonstrated against austerity measures, including a government plan to raise the retirement age.
- In India, several fired workers agitating for their union’s recognition were arrested Wednesday after protesting in front of a Hyundai plant’s gate.
- Millions of shop owners in India closed their doors on Thursday, striking and marching in protest of a bill which would allow foreign superstores like Walmart to have greater access in their country.
- In the United Kingdom, Wales was the center of one of the largest public sector strikes in a generation Wednesday as around 170,000 workers—including teachers—abandoned their posts in ongoing protests against government pension reforms.
- In the Philippines, hundreds of inmates continued a hunger strike Thursday, instigating noise barrages to agitate for faster case disposition, the release of political prisoners, and to address other grievances.
- Thousands of Greek workers participated in this year’s seventh general strike on Thursday, continuing their calls to end government austerity programs.
- Students from three high schools in Seattle staged a walk out on Thursday to gather at City Hall in protest of a Washington state proposal to fill budget holes with cuts to education funding.
- Building on a series of protests this month against Bank of America’s poor environmental record, a Thursday rally in Asheville, NC culminated in the arrest of several nonviolent resisters who wanted to call attention to BOA’s support of the coal industry.
